The explosive growth of the Internet as a means of electronic consumer-based commerce has made the Internet a suitable medium for targeted distribution of promotional information and products. Consumers are increasingly accessing online resources to conduct purchasing transactions over the World Wide Web. Online advertising and the promotion of goods and services online are among the most popular commercial applications of the Internet, and the Internet has become an extremely significant advertising tool for both the retailers and manufacturers.
Online advertising allows advertisers to measure the effect of online advertising on consumer purchase behavior in personalized advertising. For personalized advertising to be successful, however, a standardized consumer feedback measurement system is often needed to measure the effectiveness of the personalized ads. In the absence of such a system, advertisers often face the complexity and struggle to determine the true value of a sponsored ad campaign.
More recently, consumers browse retailer web sites that include product descriptions of products from many manufacturers. Thus, retailer web sites can actually divert traffic from individual manufacturer web sites. While advertisers may purchase advertisement slots on retailer web pages in which advertisements with embedded links to the advertisers landing pages are shown, many retailers are reluctant to provide the manufacturers with the commercial flexibility or advertising freedom to control the brand products on the retailer web sites, fearing that such autonomy could drive away user traffic as well as potential businesses to other third party web sites. Due to a lack of standard communication protocols between retailers and manufacturers, most product promotions also often fail to obtain desirable results. The lack of communication with the manufacturers forces many retailers to independently develop category presentations and product information for products listed in the retailer's online store, which drives up overhead costs, particularly in view of the need for updating the product listing every time a new product is released to the public.